Greco-Christian stream·Pistis Sophia·Second Book — The Repentances of Pistis Sophia·Chapter 79
Adamas and his rulers had turned back to go to their æon
Sophia addresseth Adamas and his rulers · Sophia again singeth to the Light
Source context
- Theme
- archontic judgment of sinning souls who have received the mysteries — purgatorial receivers, the Cup of Forgetfulness, and transmigration as cosmic consequence
- Soul-faculty
- Consciousness Soul
Steiner
not engaged in the GA corpus
Cross-tradition
- Platonist / Orphic eschatologyPlato's Er-myth (Republic X) and Orphic gold tablets describe soul-judgment, assignment to receivers, and a Cup of Forgetfulness (Lethe) that parallels the Pistis Sophia's cup administered to souls before re-embodiment.
- Jewish apocalyptic (1 Enoch, 4 Ezra)The watchers and angelic receivers who weigh and route souls in these texts show structural cross-tradition congruence with the archontic receivers delegated by the Light-powers in this chapter.
- Egyptian funerary religion (Book of the Dead)The psychostasia (weighing of the heart before Osiris and the forty-two assessors) is structurally congruent with the chapter's depiction of hierarchical receivers pronouncing judgment on souls according to the degree of their transgression.
Chapter 79
CHAPTER 79
And the First Mystery continued again and said unto the disciples: "It came to pass then, when Pistis Sophia had finished uttering the words of this song, that she turned herself back
to see whether Adamas and his rulers had turned back to go to their æon. And she saw them, how they pursued after her. Then she turned unto them and said unto them:
Sophia addresseth Adamas and his rulers."'1. Why pursue ye after me and say: I should not have help, that it [sc. the Light] should save me from you?
"'2. Now, therefore, my vindicator is the Light and a strong [one]; but it is long-suffering until the time of which it hath said unto me: I will come and help thee. And it will not bring its wrath upon you always. But this is the time of which he hath spoken unto me.
"'3. Now, therefore, if ye turn not back and cease not to pursue after me, then will the Light make ready its power, and it will make itself ready in all its powers.
"'4. And in its power hath it made itself ready, so that it may take your lights which are in you, and ye may become dark; and its power hath brought it to pass, so that it may take your power from you and ye go to ground.'
"And when Pistis Sophia had said this, she looked at the region of Adamas and saw the dark and chaotic region |174. which he had made, and saw also the two dark exceedingly violent emanations which Adamas had emanated, in order that they might seize Pistis Sophia and cast her down into the chaos which he had made, and constrain and harass her in that region, until they should take her light from her. It came to pass then, when Pistis Sophia had seen those two dark emanations and the dark region which Adamas had made, that she feared and cried unto the Light, saying:
Sophia again singeth to the Light."'1. O Light, lo! Adamas, the doer of violence, is wrathful; he hath made a dark emanation,
"'2. And he hath also emanated another chaos and hath made another dark and chaotic [one] and made it ready.
"'3. Now, therefore, O Light, the chaos which he hath made, in order to cast me down therein and take from me my light-power, take then from him his own.
"'4. And the plan which he hath devised, to take my light,--they are to take his own from him; and the injustice which he hath spoken, to take my lights from me,--take then all of his.'
"These are the words which Pistis Sophia hath uttered in her song. Now, therefore, who is sober in spirit, let him come forward and set forth the solution of the words which Pistis Sophia [hath uttered] in her song."